What Might've Been
by Shiori Butterfly
Summary: Immediately following Nemesis, this story contains a character and refers to events that took place in my other story To the Moon and Back.  Data has an encounter that leads to a very tough decision.  Short and complete!


"Welcome back."

Data opened his eyes.

What he saw astounded him. There she was, looking the same as she did when he had first met her three years earlier. Her dark hair was straight as a pin, and the length reached past her small waist. He noticed that she was wearing the same yellow dress she had been wearing on the night he had come to think of as "the last supper." There was some irony to that, of course. Irony was one constant that had never been completely lost on Data. The Last Supper from the Bible meaning a celebration that took place in the last days of Christ's life, and Data's "last supper" meaning the night he had made love to the woman now standing before him, not knowing then that it would be her last night alive. As it stood, she had been dead for three years, two months, four days, and forty-two minutes.

Although, considering she no longer seemed to be dead, perhaps the comparison to Christ was more accurate than he originally thought.

"Where am I?" Data asked, his mouth slightly agape.

Inside, he chided himself. Here he was, face to face with a woman he had loved and who had been taken from him, and that's all he could think to say?

Samantha gave him a soft, knowing smile. "I don't know, Data," she said. "The answer to that question is entirely up to you."

Data blinked at her. "Could you please elaborate?"

Samantha slowly walked up to him and placed both hands on his chest. Standing on her tip-toes, she placed a soft kiss on his lips which he did not know how to respond to. Pulling back away from him, she kept the same light smile on her face while responding.

"Right now, you're in control of your own destiny. I suppose I could give you a lot of spiritual references or tell you that this is Heaven, but I doubt you'd believe me. So I guess I'll just tell you that the explosion you created by destroying the Scimitar caused a very small ribbon in space, a temporal…"

"…Nexus." Data finished for her, speaking more to himself than to the young woman standing in front of him.

Samantha nodded. "Yes. So right now, this could be wherever you want it to be. Though, I'm flattered you brought me here with you. It could have been anyone."

Data's eyes had not drifted from Samantha since the moment he had arrived, but now he looked around at his surroundings, or lack thereof. Everything was white, and there was no detail anywhere. It was like they were floating in a vast…nothingness.

"Perhaps you can create a nice place for us to talk?" Samantha suggested with a chuckle.

Data had missed hearing her laugh, but as an android he had not had to suffer from "forgetting" what it sounded like. He was able to perfectly recall all the time spent with Samantha, short as it was.

Then again, not being able to forget meant that the pain never truly went away, either. "A blessing and a curse," was a phrase Data had once heard used, and after he had concluded how one thing could be both, he promptly decided that his perfect memory fit with that particular metaphor.

"I shall try," Data said, concentrating on the first thing that came to mind.

Suddenly, they were in 10-Forward on the Enterprise E. He and Samantha were both positioned to be looking out the large observatory windows that wrapped around the room.

"Very good, Data!" Samantha clapped her hands together and bounced up and down in a most jovial way. Data reflected that he had not ever seen her that happy, even in life. Although, realistically, since she was just a figment of his imagination, it stood to reason that he would want her to be happy.

"When is this?" Samantha asked him.

"Pardon?"

"When, Data? You're in control of any place AND any time. When is this?"

Looking around, Data noticed Geordi sitting at a particularly familiar table, and noted the clothes Guinan was wearing.

"I believe this is the day we met," he told her.

Standing side by side, gazing out at the stars, Samantha took Data's hand in hers and said, "Perfect."

The touch of her hand felt as real as it ever did, and Data found that it brought him some comfort, despite the fact he knew this was all akin to a dream. He knew he should let go, and turn and walk away from all this. Living in a dream was no different than living a lie, and it reminded him of psychological journals he had read, chronicling people who had become so obsessed with their perfect dreams worlds that they had cut themselves off from society in order to live on a Holodeck. He now understood how losing a loved one could make a person lose sight of reality, although in his case being faced with a Holodeck representation of Samantha had been more painful than therapeutic. He had kept her Holo-disc, of course, but had not watched it again in the three years since she'd been gone.

Softly tugging him out of his reverie, Samantha led them over to a private table in the back corner.

"Samantha, may I ask you something?"

"Of course. You can always ask me anything."

"Do you realize you are dead?"

Sam grinned from ear-to-ear and grasped both of Data's hands over the table. "I realize a lot of things, actually. I know that, to you, I've been dead for about three years. I also know that since I'm here, it must mean you really cared about me as much as I cared for you. I knew I was dying so I was too scared to come out and say what I really wanted to, until after I was already gone. I guess I'm a coward that way."

Data shook his head. "No, you were never cowardly. In fact, I believe you exhibited more courage, given your situation, than many people would have in your position."

"That's sweet, Data. I'm glad you think so."

For a long moment, they sat in silence. Data just looked at Samantha, taking in every feature as being real instead of just an algorithm saved as a memory file in his positronic matrix. Finally, he spoke again.

"I cannot stay here."

"Sure you can!"

"No, I cannot. To do so would be wrong. None of this is real, and it would go against everything I have aspired for in my life. I have fought to become more human, to be truly accepted by humans and share the same rights. This includes the right to die, if I so choose."

Samantha's smile quickly turned into a frown and she let go of Data's hands with dramatic gusto. "Why? Why would you want to die, cease to exist, when you could stay here with me?"

"It is not simply a matter of choosing death over you, Samantha. You are not really here. I believe I would love nothing more than to stay here with you, or better yet, be able to take you back with me and somehow survive the destruction of the Scimitar so that I may get back to my own real life with you. But, logically, that cannot happen. So my best course of action would be to let history run its course and perhaps find out if there is a true afterlife in which I may see you again."

Samantha looked thoughtful for a moment. "You're a man of science. You don't REALLY believe all that mumbo-jumbo, do you?"

Data cocked an eyebrow at her. "Many brilliant men throughout time have also believed in the existence of something beyond scientific explanation. I am no different. It would be foolish of me to say there is no life after death, no Heaven or Hell, without knowing for sure."

"What if this is Heaven?"

"That is highly unlikely. As you said yourself, this is a temporal Nexus."

"What if I was just saying that to soften the blow? Give it to you in scientific terms so you'd understand? What if, throughout all of time, man's view of this thing called Heaven has always been nothing more than advancement into a temporal Nexus?"

Data leaned back in his seat and studied the young woman before him. "Samantha, why are you being so difficult?"

"Because you want me to be. Maybe you want me to convince you to stay, when it's really just you trying to convince yourself."

"Intriguing hypothesis," said Data, without a hint of sarcasm.

"You know, you could ask the Nexus to take you back to a time before I died, and try to prevent it from happening. That way, we could stay together. Who knows, maybe if I had lived none of this would have ever happened! Isn't life funny that way?"

This time it was Data who took hold of Samantha's hands over the table top and pulled her in closer. "One person should not be responsible for changing history. If I did that, it would make me no better than Kivas Fajo."

"But it might be for the better!"

"Or it might not."

Data saw Samantha's eyes fill up with tears, and even though he knew they weren't real tears being shed by a living person, it still caused him pain to know he was responsible for them.

As the tears began to fall from her eyes and over her pale cheeks, Data reached up and carefully wiped them away. "You know it is for the best. If you are truly the woman I remember, you have always known what I would do."

Before Data could pull his hand away from her face, Sam reached up and clasped his hand in both of hers.

"Please. Just for one night?"

Data stood up and motioned for her to do the same.

"I am afraid I cannot."

"You're afraid you'd be too tempted to stay?"

"Yes," he answered, honestly.

Pulling her towards him as if she weighed nothing, Data wrapped her up in his arms and leaned down to give her a sweet, soft kiss. Samantha reacted by deepening the kiss, holding onto him with all her might.

If not for being equipped with an internal chronometer, Data was sure he would have lost track of the time. As it was, he finally pulled away from Samantha and gave her one last long look.

"Goodbye."

Damn, there was that word again.

It took all his resolve to turn his back on her and think about the last place he had been, on the Scimitar.

He closed his eyes and waited.

THE END


End file.
